


Styx

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hallucibass - Freeform, Hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:56:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles is dying (at the end of the mid-season 2 finale) and he sees Bass again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Styx

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been really fascinated with Hallucibass because he informs us more about what Miles thinks about himself (as well as how he sees Bass). This fic is intended to pick up right where the mid-season 2 finale left off. I have no idea how they're going to bring Miles back "to life" but if nanites are somehow involved, I am not responsible.
> 
> Also, happy New Year, fandom!
> 
> _______

It wasn’t Independence Hall in Philly this time. Oddly enough, Miles could have sworn they were on a boat. But not at sea, no, this one appeared to have been run ashore. Left there, hollowed out and desiccated like the skeleton of maple leaf once the caterpillars were through with it. 

What a strange image, that.

Miles shrugged. He knew exactly whom he would find there. The more things changed, right?

“You look tired, brother,” the raspy voice said.

“I am tired, Bass.”

“We have got to stop meeting like this, don’t you think?”

“It’s like, you’re just the thing in my head that I can’t scratch out, no matter how hard I try,” Miles’ shoulders sank in a shrug of resignation, hands dangling idly by his side. So, this must be what the end felt like. “Are you gonna lead me out of here? Towards the light? Or, maybe some place warmer?”

“Only an arrogant fucker like you would demand a personal tour guide of Hell.” Bass, or rather, the imaginary part of Bass that always seemed be there when Miles’ brain ran out of oxygen, walked over to a dilapidated bar and poured two glasses of something vaguely amber in color. 

“Where are we?”

“As you see,” Bass turned and handed one of the drinks to Miles. “On a boat,” he gestured around the small confined space. “Going nowhere.”

“If you’re here, then I must be dying, or dead.”

Bass smiled, the warm smile of days long gone, the smile of decades and lifetimes ago, so bright that Miles could practically count each one of his his pearlescent perfect teeth. The smile that actual Bass lost somewhere along the way, along the path he followed Miles down on.

“Oh, I’m not here at all, Miles. You are.”

“Yeah, that’s… what I meant.”

“So it doesn’t actually matter, you see? Whatever it is that you’re about to say to me - you might as well keep it in. Die with it. It’s better this way.”

Whatever he was about to say? Miles took a gulp, surprising himself with the distinctive taste of the tequila - a reposado, likely. Cazadores, maybe? That was the brand they had drunk together that one time, in Mexico. The peg-legged stripper. Of course. The donkey show. They hadn’t gone to it, no, they had chosen to have a donkey show of their own (one minus a donkey and minus the woman), but he had recalled the fliers with embarrassing clarity.

“Bass…” The smokey sweetness lingered on his tongue like a memory.

“I heard what you said to Rachel - ‘You were always the one’ - was that supposed to be a joke of some sort?”

He wasn’t about to get told off by a god damn hallucination, that was for sure. Miles shot back the rest of the drink.

“One _what_ , begs the question. One woman? One stone throw away from having been killed and mutilated by you? Miles and Rachel.” Bass took a sip of his own drink and paced across towards one of the circular portholes of the boat. Miles could almost feel the sway beneath his feet, as if the bark had been unmoored from beneath them. “Miles and Rachel, two ships passing in the night, tossed from port to port. It’s almost as romantic as you pretend it is. Except for when it isn’t at all.”

“If you’re not really here right now, where are you?” Miles wanted to change the subject. It was clear that much like the last time, this particular hallucination had been summoned to torment him. No decent Charon, this one. Can’t just boat his ass over across the Styx and shut up while at it. Granted, it wasn’t as if Miles had offered him anything by way of coin, or even so much as an apology. And he had so much to apologize to him for.

“Oh, you know,” Bass gestured vaguely outwardly. “Out there, somewhere, playing hide the kilbasa with your niece.”

“You fucker!”

“Oh, calm your tits, Miles. I’m not even me. I’m the me you have concocted in that death-addled brain of yours. So if anyone’s having dirty thoughts about Charlie right now, that would be you.”

“Well, alright then, so get on with it!” Miles felt the pounding in his head, like a dozen of tiny hammers all striking at the same time, on the same nerve. His best friend’s projected spectre quirked an eyebrow in an infuriatingly sassy (for a hallucination) attempt at a response. “Aren’t you going to tell me all the ways in which I am a fuck up? I mean, you were _particularly_ gleeful last time we met like this. And that was before you knew what a dickbag I’ve been.”

“Oh, right, you mean how you took my one family member and hid him away from me, after watching me fall apart from the loss of my wife and baby. That must be what you’re referring to. Or are you referring to all the other times you’ve been a giant bag of dicks? Truthfully, Miles, I’ve lost count. If my corporeal counterpart wasn’t so besotted with you, we would probably have been having this discussion years ago. But no. I… _he_ wanted you brought in alive. No matter.” Bass took another sip of his drink, slowly draining the contents of the glass. “Soon enough, this too will end. That’s what you get for letting Gene Porter tend to your wounds anyways. Serves you right. I’d suggest he did it intentionally, as revenge for the multitudinous ways in which you’ve fucked over his daughter, but I’m feeling generous and giving him the benefit of incompetence. What was his doctorate in, anyways? Ornithology, wasn’t it?”

“Orthopedics,” Miles mumbled.

“You’ve got to be shitting me. There is no way that man studied orthopedics and butchered the Butcher of Baltimore like that!” Bass broke out into seemingly uncontrollable peals of laughter. “Oh, oh, Miles,” he squeezed out in between ostentatious giggles, clutching at his sides, “Really… you…. you kill me. No, seriously, you do.”

Miles shook his head, trying in vain to clear it. The tequila in his glass must have been made of lead because he could feel his hand weakening and letting the glass go. It tumbled to the floor but somehow did not spill. The phantom veins of the spreading infection stood out starkly against his skin. There was a distant ringing in his ears.

“Bass… I don’t have much time…”

“No, you don’t.”

“Look, whatever good this does, for what it’s worth, I _am_ truly sorry. For everything. For the ways things just… fell apart between us.”

“You coward, don’t tell me this. Say that to my face! My actual face’s face!”

Bass shimmered. For a moment, Miles could see him in rags again, face covered in dirt, streaked with tears, the way he was in the jail cell before his execution. The ringing in Miles’ ears intensified. It felt as if something was pounding on his chest, trying to knock down some invisible door off its hinges.

“I might not see you again,” Miles whispered, gasping for breath.

“Oh, you’ll see me again, Miles. You’re not getting off that easily.”

“Miles, you bastard! You’re not leaving me that easily! Miles!” 

The slap on his face stung, as did the words. But the voice was all wrong. He couldn’t feel the swaying beneath his feet. In fact, he realized he was not even standing on his feet anymore. The boat was gone.

“Rachel?”

“Expecting anyone else?”

He shook his head, his mouth to dry to contradict her. 

He was alive.

And, no, he wasn’t getting off that easily.


End file.
